sick in surabaya (part 2)

As the days go by and you sit in a hospital bed, the absences begin to matter. You start counting the things that haven’t happened as they normally do because routine has claimed so much of your time. The day is broken up into tests and meals and doctor visits. The tests are broken up into blood samples, temperature checks, IV drip monitoring, and doses of medicine. The meals are broken up into the soup, the rice, the piece of meat, and the piece of fruit. The daily visit by my doctor breaks up into answering routine questions, into finding out my thrombocyte count, into hoping to hear the word ‘discharge’. Things are broken up into their substrates, their substrates, their substrates. I feel completely alone and I realize that half this battle is psychological. I don’t give up easily but in certain moments I feel completely broken. There is so much goddamn time to think.